Nevada County picayune., 1887-06-08
MT. Brancroft and Mrs. Polk.


 k. Polk was an unusually interest. ing event. Since the day when Polk retired from the presidency and George Bancroft, who had been his secretary of the navy, laid down his portfolio. almost for. tty years have passed away. Mir. Bancroft had passed his forty. ty-ninth birthday, and yet he has lived on to the present moment witnessing all the wonderful trans. formations that have taken place in this country. When President Polk retired, he returned directly to his home il Nashville. There was no railroad route, as now, to that point. He steamed down the Potomac to Hampton Roads, made the considerable sea voyage from there to New Orleans, and thence up the Mississippi to mouth of the Cumberland, and up that river to Nashville. He had brought with him from Washington a great many books aud papers, and he began the work of arranging these in his library. He overworked, was taken sick, and died in a few weeks. From that time to this, Mrs. Polk, who is one ot the most estimable of characters. has quietly resided in Nashville. Mir. Ban croft has always been actively be- fore the public. He was minister to England in lS4d, minister to Prussia in 1867. and to the German empire in 1871. But the work of his life has been the preparation and constant revision of the histo- ry of the United States. It must have been particularly interesting for the ex-mstress of the White House and the ex-secretary of the navy to compare notes and dis cuss the past Since their day in l Washington an absolute transform ation has taken place. At that time the capital was little more than country village. There were broad, unpaved streets, grand public buildings, large boarding houses, standing at magnificent distances apart and interspersed with shabby negro shanties. Cows and hogs ran at large oyer the parks and commons. The deni. zen, or their negro slaves, mixed the cows on the sidewalks at night fall It was a dull and gloomy place, and the principal excitement came when great statesmen were pitted against each other in debate, or took their way to Bladensburg to settle their quarrels hy the code. To imagine the wonderful changes that have taken place in society there in forty years one has only to look back over the past ten years. There are probably not a half dozen persons now living who figured prominently in society at that time. Our entire railroad sys. tenn has been established since then. Tho telegraph was only in- 1 vented during the last year of Folks administration, and it was put to no practical use for ten years after. No one seemed to care anything for it. They were perfectly satisfied to wait t,ll a let. ter cou d be carried. The North west and the entire Pacific slope has been civilized since then. Gold and silver have been discov- cred on the Pacific slope in Guan- titles that make the wild tales of Arabia sink into insignificance. The war for the union has been fought, and slavery abolished, A new and substantial prosperity has begun at the south, in the place of middle age feudalism. POpula- ton has increased three-fold. Shall we make such a wonderful progress in the next forty years. We shall doubtless move forward. No nation can stand still. 1t is either forward into better light or backward into darkness. Forty years from now-lo2,~ Mrs. Fran ces Folsom Cleveland, if she lives, will only be sixty-three years old. ! Will the Hon. Wm. C.. Whitpey he then visiting her at Buffalo and talk over the christening of Doro- thy and the breaking mp of naval rings and the construction of steel cruisers?
 George Bancroft left a lasting imp,ini an inc navy department